DIY SOS presenter Nick Knowles has spoken of his fear as he gave a health update on his wife Katie, who was rushed into emergency surgery following complications after a hysterectomy. Katie, 35, required urgent medical intervention after her stitches ruptured three months into recovery.
Katie had the hysterectomy after years of pain caused by PCOS and endometriosis. Nick told The Sun: 'It was frightening. You just desperately want your wife to be well and healthy and not in pain. I don’t think anything I ever go through will be a scratch on the surface of what she has been through in the last six months. She has been amazing.'
He added: 'The whole thing of having a hysterectomy, especially at the age she is, being thrust into perimenopause and menopause, that process is really brutal.' Katie was readmitted to hospital in September when her stitches ruptured, and she was operated on by a team of six surgeons.
Nick explained: 'For Katie to be three months into her recovery, and for it to fail and her to then have to go in for life-saving surgery. The emergency operation that was the one that was really frightening.'
Previously on Instagram, Katie described the rupture: 'The bit where they took my cervix and sealed it up ruptured which basically meant my insides went rogue, with crippling abdominal pains, difficulty breathing, incredibly painful gas, blood like Moses parting the Red Sea, fluid, and even my bowel where it definitely didn't belong.' She was rushed into emergency surgery within ten hours of arriving at hospital.
Nick said they are now having to be 'very careful' about her recovery. Katie reflected: 'It feels like something in me has changed, apart from being sans uterus. Right now, I’m in lots of pain. I’m bloated. I’m exhausted. I’m hot. I’m forgetful. I feel raw and less like myself. Less like a woman, if I’m being really honest. But this was a decision I made to take my life back. To stop surviving and start living again, and have days that aren’t defined by pain. This is hopefully the beginning of healing. The beginning of self-love, scars, stitches and all.'
